Mary Townsend Seymour (1873-1957), a leader and an activist in early 20th century Hartford, battled for equal rights and freedom from discrimination for all African Americans. Her numerous accomplishments include: co-founding the Hartford Chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People; campaigning for women’s suffrage and running for the Connecticut State Assembly in 1920, making her the first African American woman to run for a state office. During World War I, she helped form a Hartford chapter of The Circle for Negro War Relief, Inc., working to lend support to soldiers and their families. After the war, she became involved in labor issues. She encouraged African American women who worked in tobacco warehouses to unionize for equal treatment and wages and wrote a letter that was published in The Crisis, exposing unfair conditions by working undercover as an employee. She was also a member of the Colored Women’s League of Hartford, which taught job skills to women who moved to Hartford from the South. In 2006, Mary Townsend Seymour was inducted into the Connecticut Women’s Hall of Fame. She is buried in her family’s plot in Old North Cemetery, which is on the National Register of Historic Places. Follow the drive from the front gate on Main Street towards the back of the cemetery. The drive will turn right and then left, towards the back gate. The Seymour family plot is on the left side of the drive, near a tree.